Back to Work: Landscape Painting

First two weeks of classes are over, so I'm finally starting to legitimately work on artwork. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that having all of my classes in the studio rock. No papers, no notes, just work (with the occasional artist study). First up in my Landscape Painting class is, surprise, landscape painting! The class is working on 2 18" x 24" oil paintings based off of photos, preferably ones we took. My two paintings are of a really weird tree found during a vacation to Sanibel Island a few summers ago and a simple landscape from the local park.

 Here are the under paintings for the two, painted with burnt sienna and French Ultramarine.

So far the class seems to be pretty rigid in terms of projects and painting method, but that's all for the better. I tend to lean toward the, uh, more "freehand" side of painting, so forcing myself to paint a little more methodically (layer by layer) can help.